


However Far You May Run

by AppleJuiz



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, Identity Issues, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Reunions, revenge road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6703108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleJuiz/pseuds/AppleJuiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows three things: he will never let anyone catch him and stop him, Steve will only be safe if Hydra is eradicated (or if he is trapped permanently in a bubble, but that's more difficult), and he, along with every other incarnation of Bucky Barnes, loves Steve Rogers more than life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	However Far You May Run

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short post-WS drabble I wrote last night. Not my best stuff, but I hope you like it!

The Asset is confused.  Which is a new feeling... well, all feelings are new for the Asset, but not knowing what to do is especially rare.  

He leaves the Captain on the side of the river, makes sure he’s breathing, and then leaves.  There’s two things he does know: he needs to make sure the Captain is safe, and he will not be taken alive by anyone ever again.

So he needs to runs.  In the part of his brain that makes sense, he knows the further away he is, the safer the Captain will be.  He also mentally calculates who will be looking for him and where they think he’d go.

Hydra would expect him to go to the nearest safehouse for rations and weapons.  He does not go to the nearest safehouse.  If they think he’s running, they’d expect him to go to the Captain or head to New York like the last time his programing slipped.  He does neither.

Shield is crumbled beyond repair, but they will look for him.  They will think he’s going after the Captain to finish his mission.  They will not understand that he can’t break programming, and it’s in his deepest program, the original one that had been overridden too many times,  that he must protect Steve Rogers no matter what, and being near him would endanger that mission. They will think to look at the Captain’s apartment, or wherever the Captain plans to go next.  The Asset doesn’t know where the Captain will go after he… recovers, but he will find away to find out, and he will not go there.

The rest of them, the alphabet soup of agencies that don’t know nearly as much about him as Shield or Hydra, will think big cities.  He’s unstable and looking to kill.  He’ll go after the president or the Avengers or civilians.  He doesn’t know who the President is, nor does he care.  He wants to leave DC as soon as possible, and without an order to kill he won’t.  

(And now there’s only one person who can give him that order anyway, and Steve is a good man.)

It's too soon to leave Washington, everyone is looking for him, so he goes to the Smithsonian, an exhibit on the Captain and the man who used to have his face. He can’t go to Brooklyn, can't piece together his past yet, so the exhibit is all he has.  He gets a phantom itch in his brain when he reads a fact he thinks is wrong, and every time he sees a picture of the Captain or Steve, he feels his heart beat faster, but other than that he can't remember much about Bucky Barnes. 

(What he does remember is blood, pain, and cold. He tries not to remember much.)

When he leaves the museum he starts thinking of himself as Barnes. It feels like a step in a good direction.  

He knows Shield will be looking for him around the Captain’s hospital room, but he spends the night in a building across the street anyway. He doesn't sleep, but watches the surroundings for anyone who might be searching for him, and anyone Hydra might have been stupid enough to send after the Captain. 

When Steve wakes up, he leaves. 

He heads to Ohio. It's rural, unpopulated. People probably won't recognize him easily, and there's the last Hydra base he remembers operating out of.

He thinks about taking a train or hitchhiking but it's easily traceable. So he steals a cell phone. He's used one like this before but it still surprises him, how thin and sleek it is, how much it can do. 

He gets out of the city in an Uber, which he knows about but isn't sure how or why. He gets dropped off outside a sushi restaurant in Maryland and goes inside. 

It's been 70 years since he last set foot in a restaurant. He's never had sushi before.

He takes another Uber a few more miles away from DC and the Captain, and he climbs into the car feeling slightly full and content for the first time he can remember. 

Traveling by car is slow, switching every hour or so is tedious, but it's safe and no one will be able to find him.

By the time he reaches Ohio, he's worried he won't be able to get his job done, but he strolls into the base anyway, with three knifes and a half loaded pistol. 

By the time he leaves Ohio, Shield has a base load of new information on their enemy, and Hydra has a mountain of ashes and dozens of agents scared straight. 

He has a plan, pulls up the map on his stolen phone and pieces it all together. He’s going to travel his way up and across to the west coast, destroy every Hydra base he can remember, and see some of the novelties of the 21st century along the way. 

It's going well. He hits up most of the east coast and midwest within two months, moving a little faster when he starts varying methods of transportation. 

He's remembering new things, some bad, but some good.  Trenches in Italy that were damp and dark. A fragile photo in his pocket over his heart of Steve when he was small and his straw hair flopped into his eyes and his fingers were thin and delicate. He remembers a sketchbook he nearly worked himself to death for. The look in Steve’s eyes when he drew Barnes. The angles of his bony shoulders when Barnes would pull him tight into his side. The ever present crease between the Captain’s eyebrows. The way his heart jumps to his throat every time Steve is in danger. 

He knows three things: he will never let anyone catch him and stop him, Steve will only be safe if Hydra is eradicated (or if he is trapped permanently in a bubble, but that's more difficult), and he, along with every other incarnation of Bucky Barnes, loves Steve Rogers more than life.

He knows there are Hydra agents on his tail, but he constantly scatters the order at which he attacks bases so they never see him coming. 

He can sense Shield catching onto him, catching up with him, but he's not too worried. He gives them information and is confident in his ability to take down whatever operatives they send after him. 

He knows that they aren't planning to kill him anymore, like they were at the beginning. No, the agents after him now want him alive, want an Asset. He hasn't killed once yet since waking up, because it would make Steve upset, but if Shield gets too close, he will. He won't be anyone but Steve's Asset ever again. 

Everyone else is miles behind Shield so he doesn't even bother to think about them. 

And then there's Sam Wilson, which is a bit of a surprise. He doesn't know much about Wilson, just that he has wings and the Asset tried to kill him and most importantly, he's friends with the Captain and might even be friends with Steve. Wilson either is after him for revenge (for his wings? for Natasha?For hurting the Captain?), because the Captain wants him brought in, because the Avengers want him brought in, or because Wilson thinks he can help him. It might even be any combination of those things, and it's everything Barnes needs to avoid.

Keeping away from Wilson is fairly easy though. Wilson may be an incredible soldier but he isn't trained for tracking people. If the Captain really wanted to find him he should have sent Natasha. 

When he reaches the base in Texas, the Captain actually shows up.  He doesn't see Barnes, but Barnes sees him. It makes him hesitate and he almost gets a bullet in the gut for it. 

He makes sure the Captain and Wilson are out of the building before he sets it on fire. Then he runs. 

It was different when it was just Wilson, but the Captain is following him now too. The Captain is looking for him, probably want something from him. He'll give the Captain whatever he wants in a heartbeat.  The Captain is Steve Rogers and he loves Steve Rogers. 

He needs to keep Steve safe. Which means getting rid of Hydra. 

But Steve needs him for something. Otherwise he'd let Wilson look. He can't let Hydra continue to grow, can't let them threaten Steve or take back the Asset.  But the sooner he can eliminate that threat, the sooner he can get back to Steve. 

He moves faster. Stops switching up his patterns and shaking off his tails. He has four bases to go and if he stops playing it safe he can take care of them in two weeks max and hopefully no one will catch up with him before then. 

It's a risk, but Wilson and the Captain are the closest behind him so all he has to do is finish and then surrender to them. 

After the second to last base he starts to plan. Steve might think he's still a threat. After all, the last time Steve saw him, he beat the crap out of him.  But that was before he remembered the programming. The real one. 

He had to show Steve that he wasn't Hydra’s Asset anymore. He was Steve's Asset, and whatever Steve needs, he'll do. 

In the part of his head that's still confused half the time, he's terrified. Steve might be mad at him for running, and he knows what happens when his handlers are upset. But Steve won't do that. Steve is good. So good that he's probably mortified by what the Soldier did. So good that he might turned the Soldier over to Shield or the Avengers. 

But none of that matters.  Whatever Steve tells him to do, he'll do. 

The last base is in Los Angeles. He can feel eyes on him every step he takes towards the complex. It's pretty empty, agents probably jumped ship when they realized it was the only place left that he hadn't visited. 

He takes his time with this one, strolling through the empty halls of the base, making sure he’s destroyed every bit of information.  He watches the base burn this time, from a distance, instead of running off to the next one.  The Captain arrives a few minutes later, Wilson is flying in circles above.  

Bucky breathes deep for a second, steeling his nerves, and silencing the scared part of his brain.  He walks forward and out of the safety of his hiding spot. The Captain has grinded to a halt, dropped his shield, stares up at the burning building.  Bucky approaches him, moving faster to keep his legs from trembling.

Wilson spots him first, swooping down and landing next to the Captain, calling out a warning. Steve’s eyes snap towards him, and the look there is all his Steve, hopeful and scared, which makes his stomach drop.  Steve’s all but dashing towards him, and it makes Bucky want to run and hide.  He keeps going though, holding his breath to keep from shaking apart.  

They meet in the middle, and Steve’s looking at him, not like he’s mad but like his heart is breaking.  His hand reaches out halfway between them, and Bucky calls on year of programming to stay true to his mission.  He pulls his gun out of it’s holster, flipping it so the handle faces Steve before Wilson can so much as shout.  

Steve doesn't seem to comprehend, which makes things more complicated.  He shoves the gun toward Steve’s hand, dropping to his knees in front of him, ducking his head.  

“Buck,” Steve breathes, soft and reverentially. His hand closes around the gun, and he flings it away from them like it’s a bomb. 

“Please,” he says quick, even though it’s not what he’s supposed to say.  He planned his speech two nights ago, everything he was going to rush through about why he ran away and how he would do anything he could to help Steve, to make amends for not being better.  That’s not what comes out now, and he can’t seem to stop himself.  “Steve, not Shield.  Anything else, you know- I’d do anything for you, but please, they’d… They know what I can do, they’d make me… Anything else, whatever you want, whatever you think is right.  I’ll spend the rest of my life in a cell, just please, Stevie. I-”

“No,” Steve snaps, breathing fast, dropping down in front of Bucky. “No, no, no, Bucky.”  Steve’s hands are on his shoulder and his cheek, pulling him closer gently, and forcing him to look up.  “No one is ever touching you again.  Never.  Not Shield, not anyone.”  Steve looks angry but not at him.  “I would… Over my dead body. No one is going to hurt you or force you to do anything, ever.  Not even me, okay?”

“But… I’m yours,” Bucky corrects, leaning into Steve, begging him to understand.  He remembers saying that to Steve years ago before every war, when things were calm and bright.  He is Steve’s, his Asset, and whatever Steve needs him for-

“Yes,” Steve says slowly, shifting back to sit on his heels.  “If you want to be-”

Bucky nods quickly.  

“And only if you want to be. But I’m yours, too, Buck,” he continues.  “Which means I get to force you to do anything you don’t want to and that goes both ways.”

“But… I don’t know what to do now.  Please tell me what to do,” Bucky whispers, burying his head in Steve’s shoulder.  “What do you need me to do?”

“Shhh,” Steve says, running his hand along his back.  “I… Buck, I just want you to be happy.  I’ll help you with that however I can, but… gosh I don’t want to screw up Buck, I don’t… please don’t let me hurt you.” 

He shakes his head, fisting his hands in Steve’s uniform.

“Okay, uh, how about… if you want and only if you want, we go home? And we figure out what you want to do.  Does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees.  “Yes, Steve, I- Thank you.”

Steve kisses the top of his head, and holds him close.

“I… I love you, Buck. No matter what.”

Bucky nods, and repeats the words because it feels right.  It’s something he wants, and he can feel himself making another plan, one where he goes back to New York with Steve and keeps him safe.

He’s not sure where he’s going next, but he knows two things: he loves Steve and Steve loves him.

**Author's Note:**

> As always you can send me prompts and things on [tumblr](http://applejuiz.tumblr.com) and check out my book [here](https://cristinafernandezbooks.com/books/people-like-us/)  
> Thanks for reading!


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